1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document management system, a document management method, and a storage medium by which the setting of a scan/print button is combined to a processing flow so that a processing based on the processing flow can be easily selected and executed during scanning/printing.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, inure PCs in an office environment have been web-based. Thus, more multi-function peripherals (MFP) also have web-based Using one or another technique that vary from one company to another. Among such techniques, an efficient use method that uses the characteristics of the respective web-linked client PCs and MFPs has attracted attention. Generally, PCs are exclusively used by respective individuals while MFPs are shared by a plurality of persons. Thus, there is a demand to minimize the time required for the individual users to use the MFPs. In order to satisfy such a demand, the current MFPs have, for example, a function by which documents scanned through the MFPs can be stored in a document management server or a folder of a file server. In such a case, a client PC can be used to set a folder for storing the document and a button corresponding to the setting can be selected through an MFP browser to thereby store the scanned document in a document management server or a folder of a file server. Another function is also available by which, instead of scanning a document, an operation such as “giving an annotation” or “combining with another document data” is registered as a workflow so that the user can only have to push a scan button to perform a series of processings. Such a function is not limited to scanning and can be similarly used for printing.
With regard to this point, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-111612 suggests, for example, a system in which a template is prepared in advance and the template is compared with various operations performed through the MFP. When one of the operations matches the template, then the series of operations can be registered as a workflow.
In the office PC environment as described above, there may be a case where document data obtained by scanning a document through the MFP to store the data in a document management server for example is subsequently subjected to various operations such as “transfer to another folder” or “combine with another document data”. According to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-111612, a workflow based on a user operation history can be registered as a series of processings so that the series of processings can be collectively executed through a scan button or a print button. When three processings “transfer to another folder”, “combine with another document data”, and “mail delivery” are registered as a workflow to be associated with a scan button, for example, these three processings are sequentially executed when the scan button is depressed. However, the series of processings having the same contents are not always required when a user tries to scan a document. Specifically, there may a case in the above example where a user only wants to finish the processings up to “combine with another document data”. Regardless of this, the technique according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-111612 automatically executes all of the series of processings once the scan button associated with the workflow is depressed. Thus, even when the user wants to finish the processing up to “combine with another document data”, the processings to “mail delivery” are automatically executed once the scan button is depressed. As described above, in the case of the technique according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2009-111612, the user could not finish the processings up to an arbitrary processing among the series of registered processings depending on the situation from time to time. Thus, the only option was to register, on a case-by-case basis, a new workflow depending on the need from time to time.